With Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds seated in the background, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., speaks at the Lincoln Dinner, hosted by the Republican Party of Polk County, Iowa, in West Des Moines in February. Photo for The Washington Post by KC McGinnis
Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., launched a presidential exploratory committee on Wednesday, marking a big step toward officially entering the 2024 White House race.
Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate, has spent recent months laying the groundwork for a national campaign via early state travel and donor events. The exploratory committee will allow Scott’s team to ramp up fundraising and fund travel before he officially declares a bid.
In a video posted to social media, with Scott speaking from Fort Sumter where the Civil War started, Scott spoke about how the country again is divided.
“Once again, our divisions run deep and the threat to our future is real,” Scott says in the video. “Joe Biden and the radical left have chosen a culture of grievance over greatness. They’re promoting victimhood instead of personal responsibility and they’re indoctrinating our children to believe we live in an evil country.”
Scott, who will visit early voting states Iowa and New Hampshire this week, has been seen as a potential presidential candidate for months. He is the U.S. Senate’s only Black Republican.
He was elected to Congress in 2010 during the Tea Party wave, and appointed to the U.S. Senate in 2013 by then South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who has launched her campaign for president.
“In South Carolina, we know first hand that Tim Scott is a Tea Party extremist who can’t name a single policy difference with Donald Trump,” South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Trav Robertson said in a statement. “Scott has spent his time in Washington cosponsoring multiple national abortion bans, supporting plans to gut Medicare and Social Security, and putting special interests like Wall Street and wealthy real estate developers ahead of working people.”
Exploratory committees can raise money and conduct polls to see if a potential candidate has support for a potential run.
Launching an exploratory committee is the latest in signs he plans to run.
For months, Scott’s allies have been preparing for him to jump into the 2024 race.
The Opportunity Matters Fund Action political action committee, a super PAC which backs Scott, recently hired two S.C. political operatives, Mark Knoop and Matt Moore, to help with its operations in South Carolina, which holds the first-in-the-South presidential primary.
In 2021, Scott said he would not run for president if former President Donald Trump ran for reelection.
The race for the 2024 includes Trump, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy on the GOP side. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is reportedly considering a run himself and is planning to visit South Carolina next week.
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